A thought came into my head now considering that Champions Path is now quite popular.
Why not set up my own store to buy from a whole seller? (so that I and fellow collectors can get product at the best price)
Has anyone done this? Does anyone have any tips or suggestions in regards to setting up an online store to sell modern Pokémon product and dealing with whole sellers?
As someone who previously owned a brick and mortar retail store(not TCG) and now works in web design, this is not an easy feat. I would also imagine that distributors have safeguards in place to protect brick and mortar stores as well as online retail stores.
If it was that easy I am sure the flippers would have exploited this a long time ago.
i think u need a physical storefront
There’s actually a decent amount of people here with connections to whole sellers. I think all you need is a registered business & resale license. Then you go to one of the wholesale websites like this one www.southernhobby.com/ccg-s/pokemon/c13_259/, register with all you business info & that should be it I think.
I heard it’s not too easy to make profit though because the distributors only sell products a tiny bit cheaper. That’s why you don’t see too many people trying to undercut by much because you’ll get almost no profit.
I think that this is only true for Magic The Gathering.
Just create an offical business and you can easily get access to distributors. Reason flippers don´t do it is that they have to start paying taxes then 
This! Another reason many don’t do this is because like any other business it takes work, effort and risk to become worthwhile, especially if you’re trying to make a career out of it. Guys like TCA Gaming, smpratte and Poke Rev will have probably done their share of working 70+ hour weeks in order to progress this alongside their day job, so that they could maintain an initial cash flow to buy product with. To get the very best prices from distributors you’d need to buy consistently from them - as much as you can afford, balanced against how much product you can actually shift in a given time window. On top of that you need to have your finger on the pulse of both the English and Japanese modern & vintage markets, which again takes time and effort, not to mention networking with other sellers both local and foreign. To use myself as an example, I personally like to buy & sell to fund goals and have a little extra cash to go out at the weekend, but ultimately my career takes precedence over this & I know I’ll never have the time, energy or inclination to make this something that could sustain me full time. If you really want it and are willing to work hard at it there’s no reason you can’t make a good go of it though.
Are you looking to actually operate as an online retailer? Or just open up an online storefront in order to try and get products at distributor pricing so you can open them yourself?
From what I hear, the margins on Pokemon TCG products are super slim. You’d have to shift a LOT of product for it to be worth your time if you’re looking to turn a profit. It would be quite the time and money investment.
I’ve heard Derium mention distributor/wholesale prices on certain products in his videos. If the prices he is mentioning are true for all distributors, then it really doesn’t seem worthwhile to go through setting up an online store in my opinion.
Perhaps somebody here can confirm by giving an example, but I seem to remember booster boxes having perhaps a $10-20 margin, if that.
This is an interesting point.
I was thinking potentially storefront but if the price difference between wholesale and rrp is minimal then it wouldn’t be worth it.
If you’re just buying the product for yourself (as opposed to for resale) and you’re buying a ton of product, it’s definitely worth the effort to get wholesale pricing.
If you’re trying to make money by flipping product that you buy at wholesale prices, then don’t bother. It’s not going to be worthwhile unless you do a lot of volume. It’s a lot of work and, as others have mentioned, the margins for sealed product are very slim.
@0ean , since you used Champion’s Path as an example I’ll break that one down for you so you get a bit of an understanding of how things would unfold if you had a wholesale account with a major supplier.
Let’s say you started ordering product when Sword and Shield was launched and bought £10k of sealed product for that set, your supplier provided you with the amount you requested and you have been able to get back £7k and got stuck with some leftover product as it is still readily available in the market and people are hyped for more interesting sets.
When Rebel Clash came out you ordered £10k of it and again your supplier was able to fulfill that order. This time the set was slightly more popular and you already got back £8k and as with Sword and Shield ended up with some leftover product.
Darkness Ablaze comes around and (you guessed it) you ordered another £10k which your supplier again fulfills. Now this time you run out of stock as the set was more popular than its predecessors so when all is said and done you get £12k back.
At this point you are only £3k in the red for the year, but still have about £5k leftover stock. And then Champion’s Path is announced, you know this will be the big hit for the quarter and expect to lock in a juicy profit margin that should get you in the green and still with leftover stock from previous sets.
Finally you’re on the way to making your venture financially viable, so you call your supplier and place your usual £10k order, but this time your supplier mentions the dreaded word allocation and tells you that due to extreme demand and based on your account activity, you will only be allocated £2k worth of product for the set.
You are still able to make some money from it, but can’t shake off the feeling that this ‘allocation’ concept tilts the odds against you as you have been allowed to take full financial risk on least popular sets and limited financial reward on the most popular one.
And there you go, it reads like fiction, but it is pretty much how things work in the wholesale world.
That is not to say money can’t be made from starting an online shop, but be prepared for a steep, slow and sometimes boring climb towards success.
I had the same idea as you, so i did it. Got my self and ABN (Australian business number), got in contact with a distributor & went through the application process. They would only accept my if I had a website setup with checkout features enabled, so i spent 3 hours and built a website added some products and bang a week later i was given the approval to make a purchase. Safe to say the prices weren’t worth it for me so i haven’t purchased anything.
Case of boosters - $784.08 AUD
Case of blisters - $522.72 AUD
… I love my job so I personally am not going to bother pursing that path 
Just to ask, since the distributor pricing for a case is $784 AUD, what is the price on open market at retail stores? Sorry I don’t know AUD but having both prices would help me compare if it’s worth it or not. Thanks
A good LCS will charge 150-160 AUD each for a booster box, with online retailers maybe doing 140 AUD at times. Most places will try and charge in the high 100s, though.
have also gone done that route recently, everything has been setup and I’m sitting here deciding if it’s something I actually want to pursue. My buy size is fairly large so I think with time I could get ideal pricing, but in terms of how hard it is to unload product and the float you have to give over time leaves me wondering if it’s worth it. So infrastructure is setup for me, leaning slight no atm but would love for someone to give me the case on why it’s worthwhile to do
I feel it comes down to a few things
All the best if you do decide to go with it, i wish you all the best!
Damn. If i take it as 140 a box that’s 840 a case. With the cost being 784 how is someone even making profit selling on eBay. The eBay fees are like 10-13% and I see lots of stores even offer free shipping. How?
??!!!
I had this same thought a few months back and went for it. It’s relatively easy to setup an LLC and get a sales tax certificate. I did it purely to see what the margins are and to buy product cheaper myself. Like everyone else has said so far, it’s not easy unless you’re going to commit and aim to do some serious volume. For example, booster boxes work like this (USD)…1-11 boxes = $85/box, there’s a small break at 12, then if you order more than 60 boxes you can get them for closer to $80/box (from a distributor).
Most new booster boxes are selling for $95 now on ebay. Right at release they were at $89.
$95 sale price
Unless you’re buying big quantities directly from Pokemon, it’s going to be hard to turn a profit on most sets. $11 is still expensive if you view it as customer acquisition cost to be able to sell direct to them later on. So then you look at the Holiday sets (like Champion’s path). More demand, more margin. Everyone was hyped about Champion’s Path, so I figured, why not do a pre-order like others were doing. I sold 240 ETBs, requested 500 ETBs. Guess how many I got “allocated”? 30…that was a bad day.
I’ve spent the last week informing people they won’t be getting an ETB and offering refunds while also trying to track down as many as I can. It sucks.
Needless to say, I’m not interested in playing that game in the future Lesson learned, lick the wound, move on.
My next thought was to sell directly via Instagram and other channels offering slightly better prices, cut out ebay. I tried this math…
$85 booster box
The math just didn’t make sense for the effort that it takes. So now I’m just going to buy for me (and possibly anyone else who wants to cover costs) and go back to having fun with pokemon
I enjoy making videos, sharing insights, collecting specific cards, etc. way more than running a store. I’m glad I ran my experiment, but I’ll leave it to the pros.
I believe in (most) cases the shipping is passed onto user, I don’t think many new releases are giving free shipping atm for $95 are they?
Almost all new sets on release sell for $89-$95 with free shipping on eBay. The vast majority of “successful” listings for new boxes offer free shipping.